


Contentedly Ever After

by Fyre



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Charmed Life, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-26
Updated: 2012-07-28
Packaged: 2017-11-10 19:08:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/469674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyre/pseuds/Fyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, you had to be content with what you had.</p><p>Prequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/441627/chapters/753525">Charmed Life</a> - it transpires this will be a series of one-moment scenes from the life of Mr and Mrs Gold at random points during the 28 years of the curse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It wasn't the wedding anyone would have imagined.

It was barely more than a signing of a register.

Ruby crossed her legs, then uncrossed them again, watching as Mary Margaret put pen to paper. She lifted the camera, took a photograph, then immediately felt guilty, which was dumb. Mary Margaret had invited her, after all. Mary Margaret had invited a few people. 

There were only two people there.

Ruby knew she was there out of an equal mix of curiosity and pity, but she couldn't work out why Archie was there. Maybe he was as much a Mr Nice Guy as everyone said. Maybe he was friends with Mr Gold, but even that sounded ridiculous. No one was friends with Mr Gold. 

Mary Margaret didn't look disappointed about the turn out. Maybe a little sad and resigned, but given who she was getting married to, it was amazing that anyone had turned up. Ruby took another quick photograph as Mary Margaret looked up at the man who was now her husband. She actually looked happy, which was the biggest surprise of the whole day.

Ruby knew Granny wouldn't believe her without proof.

There were rumours all over the place: Mary Margaret was so broke that she was throwing herself on Mr Gold's mercy out of desperation; Mary Margaret wanted a husband who would dress her in diamonds and gold and silk; Mr Gold had some leverage on Mary Margaret to blackmail her into marrying him.

Beside Ruby, Archie folded and unfolded his hands. He looked uneasy, but when the registrar called on him, he approached and signed the documents as witness to the marriage. Ruby leaned down beside him to put her mark on the page as second witness.

When Archie smiled at Mary Margaret, it was careful, but genuine. "Congratulations, Mrs Gold."

Mary Margaret blushed. "That's going to take some getting used to," she said. She looked from one of them to the other. "Do you want to join us for dinner?"

Ruby and Archie exchanged looks.

Coming to the wedding was one thing.

Socialising with Mr Gold, even if he was with Mary Margaret, wasn't anyone's idea of a good time.

"If they have other places to be, let them go, dearie," Gold said with a small smile down at the woman who was now his wife. For a second, Ruby thought he actually looked like he gave a crap. Then he looked up, and the shutters were back down, his eyes cold. "We wouldn't want them to feel obligated."

"Not at all," Archie said, raising a hand calmingly. "We'd be delighted to come and celebrate your marriage."

The look Mr Gold gave him said that he didn't believe a word the shrink was saying, but Ruby guessed it would suck to have a wedding day with no one else there, and Mary Margaret had always tipped her well at the diner. Hell, a free meal on Mr Gold's account didn't happen every day. 

"It'll be fun," she said, trying to sound convincing.

Mary Margaret looked relieved. "Oh, good," she said, a smile breaking onto her face. 

Ruby felt sorry for her. No girl ever imagined a wedding day where hardly anyone showed up, and even the people who did were only there out of curiosity or pity. She was pretty sure Mary Margaret never imagined getting married in a plain, buttoned-down twinset in a registry office to the most frightening man in Storybrooke.

And yet, when Mr Gold offered her his arm, and Mary Margaret smiled, for just a second, they looked like a regular couple.

 

____________________________________

 

Archie didn't like to pry.

He tried his best not to analyse people when they weren't in his office, but sometimes, it was impossible not to. It was that very thing that found him sitting in the registry office, watching Mary Margaret Blanchard signing away her name and becoming Mary Margaret Gold. 

Nothing about the couple made any sense.

Gold was cold, abrasive, sharp-tempered and ruthless. Mary Margaret was all smiles and sunshine. 

Of course, there was the popular train of thought that suggested opposites might attract, but there were opposites and then there were Mary Margaret Blanchard and Cameron Gold. 

Archie didn't want to admit he was there to see how they interacted. He knew every varient of the stories that surrounded Storybrooke's most unlikely couple. Mary Margaret's smile as she slipped a rose in Gold's buttonhole put paid to the coercion theory. Her modest suit suggested the gold-digger notion wasn't quite right. Even the brief smile that flitted across Gold's lips as she said her vows undercut the most likely possibility of blackmail. 

They didn't make any sense as a couple to anyone who knew them separately, but as he watched them together, they suited one another. 

Mary Margaret seemed to draw rare smiles from the stone-faced Gold, while Gold seemed to encourage her to boldness. 

Their wedding dinner was at the Marina bistro, apparently on Mary Margaret's request, and while Archie initially felt misgivings about taking advantage of their hospitality, he found himself fascinated with simply watching them interact. Mary Margaret had lived with Gold for a year or so, if he remembered right, and it seemed they knew each other's habits well.

When their dishes arrived, she stole some of his tomatoes, while he acquired her bread. She put a light sprinkle of pepper over her whole meal, then added a small dose to his fish only. He ordered a white wine without even consulting her, and she declared he knew her favourites too well. 

Ruby seemed just as surprised by it all.

The young woman was sitting with one elbow propped on the table, chin cupped in her hand, watching them with far more open scrutiny than Archie would have dared. When Gold looked at her, she would blush and look away, but as soon as his attention was on either his food or his new wife, she would go right back to staring.

Ruby was usually a good measure of popular opinion in Storybrooke, and Archie had a feeling that no one would believe either of them if they said that the Golds seemed to be a genuine and happy couple. 

 

__________________________________________

 

Mary Margaret wasn't sure what she was expecting.

It was only a bit of paper, really. There was no great change in their relationship. She had been living with Cameron Gold for months. They had been sharing both life and bed for almost all that time. Nothing was really changing, aside from the band of gold on her finger and her name. 

All the same, when she woke up beside him - her husband - the next morning, she felt quietly content.

Perhaps it was the permanence of it.

She lifted her hand to look at the ring, tilting it to catch the faint light breaking through the curtains.

"Regretting it already?" Cameron murmured.

She brought her hand down to swat him on the chest. "You know I don't," she said, propping her cheek against her right hand and looked down at him. "What about you?"

He looked at her, his eyes still hazy from sleep. "I never saw myself as the married type," he admitted, but a careful smile crossed his lips. "I'll get used to it."

She prodded him in the ribs, earning a chuckle. "That's what every bride wants to hear," she said, pulling a face. "'I'll get used to it'. There stands the last of the romantics."

"I never professed to be otherwise," he reminded her with a yawn. He extended his left arm in invitation, and she curled against his chest, laying her head on his shoulder. His arm curved around her, his fingers tracing over her shoulder gently. "I know it was hardly the wedding you would have wished for, dearie..."

"It was all I wanted," she said quietly. "You were there. I was there. That's all we really needed." He was silent for so long that she lifted her head to look at him. She gave him a stern look. "I know that expression. That's the 'I will have vengeance on those who disappointed me' look, and I don't want you going after the people who turned down our invitations."

His lips thinned. "What about the ones who didn't bother to reply?"

Mary Margaret considered him, then laughed. "With those ones, you can do what you like."

He moved his hand to cradle the back of her head, drawing her lips down to his. "You," he said, "may be the perfect wife for me."

That, more than any protestation of love, made her smile with happiness.

 

_____________________________________

 

Cameron Gold was the first to admit he wasn't a good man.

It wasn't that he was an especially bad man either, but his moral compass definitely didn't point due north all the time. He did the necessary things that others might be afraid to dirty their hands with, as long as the price was right. 

Some of it was no worse than fiddling expenses or delaying shipments, but some of his little misdeeds were slightly closer to illegal than legal. Nothing that would ever stand in court, of course. Anyone who played so close to the edge of the law had to know the rules and how to avoid breaking them in tiresome ways.

No.

He certainly wasn't a good man.

And yet, somehow, he had ended up married to the woman commonly acknowledged to be one of the sweetest, most good-natured and kindly women in Storybrooke. He didn't quite know how that happened, but he certainly didn't feel the need to complain.

They were opposites in almost every way, and he often wondered why it didn't bother him. There was something about her smile. At the right angle, in the right light, something about it made his breath catch like he was seeing someone he hadn't seen for a long time. Once, she approached him at the table, touched his shoulder from behind, and his heart jumped with an emotion that wasn't surprise. 

There was something about her that made him feel sentimental, something about her presence in his house that demanded that he notice her and care. He watched her, listened to her, enjoyed her presence. She should have had blue eyes. For whatever reason, he always thought she had blue eyes, though he couldn't say why.

The proposal had been accidental, as much of the relationship had been.

He had been cleaning jewellery in the shop and a ring must have fallen from the counter into his pocket. She had found it, and been startled and delighted. By the time she realised it was not what she thought, he found himself warming to the idea of having her around on a permanent basis. Once he stopped her blushing and stammering her apologies for such presumption, he insisted that she should choose one of the nicer rings from the shop and make it official. 

And so, they had ended up engaged.

Less than three months later, in a vain attempt to put paid to bitter gossips, they got married.

The gossip went on, but that didn't matter. The Pink Palace - Mary Margaret had dubbed his proud homestead with the dreadful moniker the first time she saw it, and it had stuck despite all his efforts to convince her otherwise - was a happy home. They seldom argued, they ate together, they laughed and talked together. It was pleasant.

Cameron Gold often wondered if the feeling his wife stirred in him was that elusive emotion, love.

He cared, that much he was sure of, and he was fond of his wife, but love was never mentioned.

Sometimes, he supposed, you had to be content with what you had.


	2. Sick Day

"But I have to go," Mary Margaret protested, struggling to sit up.

"Nonsense," Cameron said, putting his hands on her shoulders. It took him no effort at all to push her back down against the pillows. "You know better than anyone how easily children can catch the flu. Even if you are in charge of the play, would you want to be responsible for an epidemic?"

Mary Margaret pulled a face at him. "You're exaggerating," she complained.

Her husband gave her a stern look. "You're not the one who had to listen to you coughing and hacking all night," he said. "I'm sure than Miss Harper and Mr Knight can more than manage the rehearsals." He got up from the edge of the bed, then bent over her, tucking her more snugly under the blanket. "You're staying in bed, and I'll stay here in case there's anything you need."

She blinked at him in hazy confusion. "But the shop..."

"The shop can survive one day without me," he said, rolling up one sleeve and then the other. "The school, on the other hand, will fall to a Pandemic if I let my wife run rampant."

She stuck out her tongue at him. "Not that bad."

His brown eyes widened and with dramatic emphasis, he glanced down at the bucket she had put beside the bed. "Not bad, you say?" he said. "Unless I'm very much mistaken, dearie, you have half a forest glade of used tissues in there."

"Runny nose," she mumbled sheepishly.

"I stand corrected," he said dryly. 

He bent over her and pressed his cool palm to her forehead. It felt wonderful and she closed her eyes. He was probably right. She did have a fever, and her head was aching. The fact she hadn't slept more than three hours between coughing and sneezing certainly wasn't helping her to form a cogent argument.

"I'll get you some painkillers," he said, "and I think there's orange juice in the fridge." His hand trailed down to stroke through her sweat-dampened hair. The gentleness of his touch was soothing, and almost made her forget about the throbbing in her head. "Is there anything else you need?"

"Just..." She opened her eyes just a crack. "Just keep doing that?" she murmured.

He must have done so until she fell asleep, because the next time she opened her eyes, the room was quiet, dark and empty. She squinted at the clock, startled to realise she had been sleeping for well over an hour and a half. There was a glass of water on the bedside table, and a couple of painkillers.

Mary Margaret pushed herself upright, groping for the glass, drinking it greedily and knocking the pills back.

Her head swam, but her stomach made a protest, reminding her that she hadn't eaten for well over twelve hours. She managed to find her dressing gown at the foot of the bed and tugged it on, then made a brave attempt to stand up. Her legs quivered beneath her and she exclaimed in surprise when they gave way, depositing her in a heap on the floor.

The thump must have been loud enough to be heard downstairs.

She had barely dragged herself back towards the bed when the bedroom door opened.

"What on earth are you doing, dearie?" he demanded, leaning down to help her up. 

Without his cane, it became the lame leading the lame, as he leaned against her as much as she leaned into him to get her back to the right side of the bed. With a grunt, he hoisted her back onto the mattress and she fell against the pillows, already exhausted.

He smoothed her hair and Mary Margaret grumbled, "I was hungry."

"A good sign," he said, "but I told you to stay in bed." He tapped the end of her nose with a fingertip. "For once, let someone else tell you what to do, Madam Teacher."

She squinted at him. Her vision was cloudy and it felt strange. "Do I look awful?"

"You look pink-nosed," he said, "and rosy-cheeked and, from the look of your hair, you were pulled backwards through a hedge." She made a small, pitiful sound of indignation. Cameron just chuckled and leaned down to kiss her reverently on the forehead. "For someone with flu, you look adorable."

She reached up one arm to drape it around his shoulders. "You'll look after me?"

"As long as you'll have me," he promised.


End file.
